Comatose Dialouge
by Servant of Fire
Summary: AU No Slash, written with my best friend. John and the police are looking for a rendered- comatose Sherlock at the bottom of a river, when John starts hearing Sherlock's subconscious thoughts.
1. Hearing

**~ "Comatose Dialouge"**

**Co -written with my best friend~**

**~Hearing~**

Telepathy. Impossible. Or supernatural. Or some sort of magic. Absurdity.

But happening.

Becoming a phenomenon of stimulus. Supernatural. Maybe even divine intervention.

"SHERLOCK!"

He screams his name to the dark of the forest.

The river rushes past him, like freight trains of Time. He couldn't hear him answer ,even if he did.

"John." thought John, inadvertently.

No, can't be. He didn't hear that, it's in his head.

He freezes, listening,

He could have just gone crazy.

But he chooses to believe.

"Ok...where are you?" thinks John, desperately.

Wants to believe it.

Please God...don't let him...be dead.

"Dark..." thinks John.

Not John.

Thinks _Sherlock_.

And John can hear him...


	2. Lost

**Lost~**

"Where are you?" John pleads,to the silence in his mind.

And the silence answers him from somewhere that _still_ lives.

Hope.

"Dark...water..."

"I'm going crazy, you cannot POSSIBLY have learned telepathy since I saw you last night!" John growls under his breath.

"Dark...water...trees...River bank..."

John pauses along the river.

"Yes, see, yes, it's just my imagination...playing tricks on me, desperately hoping that you...aren't dead."

Please, God!

Not you...

Don't be...

"John?"

"I'm still here, but this is ridiculous! Go away."

"Downstream..."

John pauses, in wonder.

"Shapes...like glass...broken..."

John holds his breath.

"Empty shack. Scimitar. Blood...

Cold..."

And then he knows . This is real.

This is where the killer took him.


	3. Look

**Look~**

"Greg!" John calls, running away from the river now, towards the circle of electric torches, and the bonfire that all the men are sitting around.

Greg snaps the top off a water bottle, and looks up, exhausted.

"Have you found something , John?" he asks, looking desperate.

John swallows.

"No, not exactly. Call me crazy, but I think we should search downstream...again."

"Why? We've scouted there 3 times already!"

"Well, I got to thinking, level place like that, there could be an old shack, one of those abandoned countryside homes...It's worth a go, don't you think?"

Greg blinked sadly, really feeling for John.

He did _not _ want to hike all the way back down there. Searching for a serial killer is unnerving business. Searching for a serial killer that has written the "Bible of Murder" and published it page for page on a pseudonymous Twitter account is another. But searching for "The Author and Finisher of Murder" in the upper Moorlands, down a jagged cliff, and an icy river, in the dead of winter, when said Author has taken off with your prized- and- only consultant detective, and has posted on said Twitter page he means to use "the infamous Sherlock Holmes for human sacrifice" takes your cakes, and burns your biscuits to a crisp, if you'll pardon the expression.

He was exhausted, anyway.

But for Sherlock, for the fear of what has become of Sherlock...

And for John, who will be utterly lost without Sherlock...

He can hike downstream for the 4th time.

"Ok, everybody! John says he suspects there being some sort of shack downstream. Would be the perfect bolt hole for one of these kinds of killers. Might be the elements gotten to his brain, but it's worth a look anyway, as we've got nothing to go on!" Greg called to his team, and shouldered his backpack.

Came and clutched John's shoulder,with a wry smile.

"C'mon, mate." he muttered.

John turned to follow him, feeling that this might be madness.

"Flint..." he hears Sherlock in his mind.


	4. Mirror

**Mirror~**

They get halfway down, and find a path they didn't find an hour ago, because of the mist.

"What did you mean by flint?" thinks John, still feeling crazy, but manically hoping that somehow this little head game is reality.

"Bed..."

And for the first time, the thoughts, begin to form sentences.

"Laying..on...bed...of flint..."

"Who is, Sherlock?" thinks John in reply.

"I am...actually. "

John squints, looking for dark stones. Feels like he's hit his head against his own stupidity.

All is dark now, as the night deepens.

He's about to shout at Greg that he was just tripping from exposure, and that this was a stupid idea, really, when they all stumble, rather abruptly, up to the doors of an old shack.

In the yard there are shards of glass.

What once belonged to a Victorian vanity. One with a brass frame that lays crushed, trodden under a large foot, like pottery, lying in the shape of a serpent.

"Mirror...mirror...whose turn is it to die?" thinks Sherlock, into John's mind.

"Don't." John whispers in a biting tone.

Sees his reflection on the smallest shard.

A shard that is rimmed in red.

Blood red.

"Mine." thinks Sherlock, and grows silent.


	5. Blasphemy

**Blasphemy~**

John stays nailed to that spot, as if the coffin is already shut, fuming with anger.

"Shut up!" he hisses to Sherlock.

The glass glints up at John mockingly, seems to smolder with all the red.

One of Greg's forensic officers bows down, to take a blood sample, see whose it is.

"Honestly...wasting time...they know..it's mine." thinks Sherlock, brokenly.

John puffs.

"So, you're _haunting _me?!" he thinks, anger suddenly volcanic ash in his veins.

"_Details,_John! No "haunting" , not "dead.."

Still dying.

Comatose..."

John is floored by the revelation.

There is blood.

There is LOTS of blood.

Is he going to believe the little Sherlock voice in his head, or what his eyes can see?

Sherlock would have gone with the facts.

The facts say that Sherlock is dead.

Faith.

"John!" Greg wails.

John bolts for the shack.

There is a sign, carved in a shaky hand, polished with a lacquer made of human blood.

"FIRST CHURCH OF MURDER" it reads.

John gasps, at that.

Greg is holding a book in shaking hands. A notebook, made to look like something out of ancient folklore, one of those stage prop things that you can actually write in.

Across the top it says,

"Epistle of St. Sherlock, The Witness of the Testament of Murder".

" _Blasphemy!" _hisses John, aloud.

Greg nods agreement, and holds a shaking hand at the cover.

Dare he open it?

"No, this is NOT happening. You were at home just last night. Eating all the leftovers, making annoying deductions loudly at the telly,..." thinks John.

"What is he waiting for? Open it!" thinks Sherlock, peevishly.

"No, can't...this...this is ...blasphemy. Sherlock, this is...wrong on more than just a human level!"

"This is evidence, John." Sherlock thinks simply.


	6. Glimpse

**Glimpse~**

Greg holds his breath. His pulse is driving like a team of horses, so hard John can see his throat bulging a bit. His eyes flutter, and he opens the book.

It's a scrapbook.

The scrapbook of murder.

In bold blood letters, written across the top of the first page it says,

"WHO DUN IT?"

Under neath there are several pictures of a man. A very creepy man, with wild blonde hair, and a scraggly, braided beard.

"ME!" is written, in blood, in Sherlock's blood!, underneath it.

John's fists clench, wanting to tear the head off the man in the photograph.

" My name ...my real name ...is Eugene Trigmestus White...Ok, so that's not my BIRTH name, my birth name is Peter Schubert, from Leeds. You can have my mobile , my driver's liscence, my birth certificate, anything you like. This is a confession."

Greg nearly threw up, and started to drop the book. John took it from him, and began to thumb through.

The next page was filled with photographs of a table carved out of flint rock.

"SCULPTURE!" was written across the top of the page in blood.

"Ok...this book has little pieces of me all through it. First thing I'd like to do is say 'Hi!'

Here are some things about me, first thing I loooooove sculptures. This is what I call the Altar. It's where I do Human Sacrifice. Human Sacrifice is by far my favorite hobby (shhhh, spoilers...)"

John felt like he could rip the book in half ,top to bottom. His hands were quaking with rage now.

"I also like the Arts, Theatre , Poetry, Drama...so I do alot of playwriting, and dress rehearseal before I do my sacrifices. Here are some pics of my last dress rehearsal!"

The next page was by far the worst.

Across the top of the page it said,

"THEATRE"

And there were photographs.

Photographs of Sherlock, roughed up, but unmistakeably Sherlock, hanging from the cieling, his wrists wrapped in a log chain, the hook swinging from the rafter. He was wearing cheap stage make up, and a crappy "King Lear" costume. He was snarling at the camera, always defiant, brave...idiot brave, and stupidly clever...Sherlock.

John got choked up, and swallowed. His hands were shaking so badly now he dropped the book, and caught it with his knee.

Last night...

Sherlock was at home...Eating what had been left of their last order from the Chinese place...Shouting at the telly...Making fun of the "cheap acting" or whatever he was saying about "Glee". Was so bored _he_ was watching GLEE! Had aggravated John half to death, deducing how horribly wrong his most recent date had gone, when he came sulking back home.

Just...last...night.

"This cheeky _..." John muttered, unable to even let the curse from his lips, voice dying in his throat, covering his mouth with one shaking hand. Tears were wrenched from his eyes, his eyelids quivered not letting them spill over. Greg swallowed a sob, and nodded.

Whatever it took, if they had to plod along ,knackered as they were, till they reached the Gates of Hell...

Justice was coming for "Eugene Trigmestus White"...aka "Peter Schubert" or whatever.

And they were going to bring Sherlock home...

Dead or alive...


	7. Pursuit

**Pursuit~**

Now that fury is tearing him apart, John couldn't be more calm. It's as if self-destruction is his destiny, and he's absurdly ok with it .

In fact, he'd rather it end this way, with him, head on fire, blood turned to liquid steel, tearing through the woods in the moor country.

In hot pursuit, cold blooded as a snake through the wispy grass, fury somehow manageing to give him night-vision.

Something more than telepathy.

Now he can feel Sherlock's pulse.

Slow...too slow.

Comatose.

"Hang on, I'm headed your way..." his thoughts whisper to him.

Wherever he is he'll find him.

"Not me...don't...don't come for me.

He's dangerous.

He's just brilliant enough to get himself caught.

Well, actually, he's brilliant enough...to showcase himself..."

"Shhh..._you _ are the priority. He'll roast in hell either way. He'd better hope he roasts in the after life hell...because if I find him..._when _ I find him, it will be much worse."

The pulse grows louder, or rather it is silent. But it is as if it grew louder, when really John can only hear it in his silent thoughts. It seems to be more pronounced some how, and then:

John feels the adrenaline course through him like a rocket.

As somehow, as if it echoes off the wallls of the atrium of his own heart, a second consciousness, an additional pulse, John can feel Sherlock's heart beating inside of his own.

Beating too slow...

Comatose.


	8. Found

**Found ~**

He draws closer, and the pulse is now rapid in his veins, like the drums of war, machines of death whirring in his head, as he is closer every step to revelation.

Trees rise like jagged boulders out of the sea of darkness, and he floats, he hovers, he is a spirit of desolation coming for justice, thirsting for it in the drought that hangs Light and Darkness in its balance.

He stumbles in the night, and is so near his mark that it overwhelms him, he closes his eyes, hits his knees.

John looks up, throat tight,wondering.

And then,the moon peels away the mask of cloud, pale- faced warrior, like ancient ninja springing from the Yangtze shore.

That sudden ,shocking moonlight reveals the limp sleeper.

"Sherlock!" John whispers, throat as thick as an imploded mine.

Found.


	9. Prayer

**Prayer~**

"Oh my God!" Greg groans, and totters, collapsing in some bushes.

John kneels beside Sherlock's limp body.

"Please..." he thinks.

This time his thoughts don't answer.

He's blue, and cold.

Blood.

John very carefully takes his head in his palm, supporting the nape of his neck, laces an arm around his waist, lifts him to the light.

So much blood...

" Ok, Sherlock...just stop this." he thinks.

And smiles.

Because he wasn't crazy.

Because this was real.

Somehow Sherlock lead him to where he was.

And no matter what happened now.

Whatever it took...

John would get the justice that he thirsted for.

"Greg." John whispers, voice curt, taking the tone of command.

He's back in Afghanistan, where the entire world is a battlefield, and the only rest a man can hope for is in a body bag.

"Here..." Greg replies, voice muffled, breath rattling.

Afraid.

John is the solider. This is the battlefield. Greg is the CROW, a fresh set of eyes to the horror that is war.

And Sherlock is the body on the outspread duvet. The broken boy in the makeshift bed.

John is back in Afghanistan. And prays likewise.

"Please God..." he thinks.

"Please God, let him live..."


	10. Emergency

**Emergency~**

They carry him, up through the forest, and the slate- sharp hills.

John supports his head, and Greg his feet.

He bleeds.

His heart barely beats.

John is in action, almost a machine.

He doesn't even remember being in the scene, until it's all over.

Because there is no ambulance, they haul him into the bed of a truck.

John takes off his jacket, and rolls it into the shape of a loaf of French bread, and lays it under his neck.

The moonlight bursts over head with the ferocity of a spotlight.

They have been sighted from outer space,their travesty exposed.

This could not be their life.

Because just last night...

John hears Sherlock's voice in his head again, but it isn't some divinely telepathic message.

Now it is only memory...

" _The angle at which the gravy has dripped down your sleeve suggests that she spilled it on you, on purpose!"_

_"Shut up!"_

He'd been angry with him for poking fun. But it was anger that hadn't outlasted his shower.

As soon as he was clean, he flopped down next to him on the settee.

"_She smelled like mothballs anyway."_

_"Blind dates...Rubbish. John, a woman that goes by "Euphemia" and wears her hair in an afro? Not your type. So ,anyway, there isn't any reason to have your...sentiments...so ruffled. But I'm glad you showered. You smelled like her body odour, which genuinely reeked like a large wild pig's backside."_

_"HOW could you possibly know about the afro?"_

_"The strand of hair she got in the food,which is now wedged between your teeth. As for the pig's backside odour, that was an elementary deduction, YOU don't smell like wild pig's nether region, as you are generally hygiene obsessed, and when you go on dates, you smell like a cross between new car, and dentist office. Now the name, that was a bit more difficult, I can see by the smudges of sandwich dressing , (very faint, but has the distinctive hue of 'Thousand Island' a sort of pinkish oarnge) on the keypad of your mobile , that you were in the process of typing the letter "E" twice, "I" once,"A" once , "P", and "H", and with one "E" you hit the uppercase key. You have received messages twice in the last 5 minutes from Mike Stamford, so I can assume that he was the one who most recently texted you, the subject matter of this conversation was your latest date, and so the letters you were typing from a yet unwashed hand were a name, woman's, decidedly old fashioned, probably not her first name, but the one she preferred. Not your type..."_

His words... his voice, the kind that John called a "movie trailer voice", haunting to the ear...And everything about him...Suddenly exposed by moonlight.

Suddenly he realizes just how desperately he needs him to live.

He cannot die.

He tears into a bag of "Quick-Clot" he had in his coat pocket with his teeth, and staunches all the obviously serious bleeding...Looks back at his pale face.

Not only his friend, but also his _best _friend. And he has had so many...

His brother-in-arms, in the battlefield of crime, that encompasses the whole world.

Electric torches flicker out, and headlights on many cars light up.

There is no hospital for miles, no ambulance, no medical supplies.

John is going to have to make do.

He is barking orders. Some how he ends up with a million little bags of coffee sugar from Donovan's coffee maker that was loaded up with the stuff the crew brought out. He has a balloon one of the officer's had as a joke to annoy Greg, and a few bottles of water the Inspector has provided. He has to use a staple and a plastic straw from a juice pouch, fixed to a long series of said plastic straws that he has fixed together very carefully ,ceiling them end on end with super glue from the boot of Greg's car,and scraping the inside of the straws with a dried up pen, to keep there from being any harmful residue.

And so Doctor Watson makes an IV solution of sugar and water, and pours the solution into the joke balloon, tying off Sherlock's vein with a rubber band. He hangs the balloon up over the back window pane of the mud-tire rigged truck.

Now that the business of his bleeding and his fluids is done with, the ex army medic is posed with the more difficult questions.

What has been done to him?

And where is the miserable sod who did this?


	11. Chase

**Chase~**

Moonlight like avalanche, heavy white.

Then the low howling of dogs.

"Ohhhh...Godd..." groans Sally Donovan from the tailgate.

John whips around.

There. In the moonlight.

His wild blonde hair pulled back in a fluffy feathered hat.

King Lear robe, and a garland wreath, partially on fire.

A sled, like Santa or something, but being pulled by dogs.

Like the Baskerville dogs, made unnaturally violent by some drug's influence.

There are exhaust pipes on the back of Eugene White's sled, that put off the Baskerville aersol like engines put off their smog.

And in the back, where Santa's presents would go,a stack of filled body bags.

Victims...

Anderson lets out a blood -curdling shriek that echoes off the Moor like something from the days of Arthur, fear, and magic.

"I love a good show!" howls Eugene White to the chill night air.

Indeed , he does.

And one of the officers got the whole thing on camera.

Posted it to his Youtube account.

Now all the world would know...

"You have to bring my Hamlet back...the chief character for my final ,glorious act!" screamed Eugene.

John closed his eyes against the horror of it all.

"Justice before irrational bursts of rage." thought Sherlock into his mind.


	12. Crash

**Crash~**

It happens so swift, that John can't register it at that moment.

He moves through the scene like smoke moves through a whirlwind, feeling invisible, and as if he's made of bubbles, strained through a net, coming out on the other side, alive, unhurt, breathing.

The sled got too close to one of the wheels. One of the dogs yipped a shrill, ear-piercing yip, as the truck's back wheel crushed him, first his feet, and then his skull.

This caused the truck to lose traction, between the dying dog and the slick mud on the trail headed back to the nearest town.

The truck began to wriggle like a worm caught at the end of a matchstick, trying to get away from the invisible flame that is the sense of danger.

And then there was a loose stone, as they were coming down from that high stony hill hard by a river in the Moor country. The right back tire ,grasping for traction, that had just barely balanced them this whole precarious skating figure ,hit that stone.

The truck flipped, rolling like a keg across the pub on St. Patrick's day.

John's ears were ringing with all the sudden commotion of noise.

He somehow rolled free of metal, unhurt.

Donovan and Anderson had been dumped out right as the truck went topsy turvy, and had hit the ground running, stumbling somehow unscathed to the sanctuary of a tree's shade, clinging to the trunk for dear life.

John had hit the ground rolling, having protectively pinned Sherlock under himself.

He leaned back.

Sherlock lay ,convulsing. Too much trauma for one evening, then. And forget about the makeshift IV bag, the whole rig had been torn to pieces, even before the truck hit the ground.

The truck slid to a stop in the sticky mud.

The windshield was shattered.

Greg Lestrade did the backstroke through broken glass, and hauled himself to his feet, shaking himself off, cut to pieces, but alive.

In the one hand he held handcuffs, in the other he aimed his pistol.

"I probably don't have to tell you this, but you most likely will have a closed casket. Actually, I hope they cremate you.I'll come to your funeral too , if you like, if only to guarantee that somebody flush your ashes down the loo. Hope they pick me."

Eugene White stood in the midst of his somehow caught ablaze sled, his crushed and bleeding dogs, and the bodies of his victims.

"Would you like to know how , Inspector? "

"No. But I'm sure you're going to tell me..."

"They were all based off of a character from a story, particularly stories from the Bible, or Shakespear,sometimes I'd combine them. There's nothing personal, Inspector, it just makes for better acting if all the blood is real. Now Sherlock, Sherlock was tricky. I based him mostly off the death of the Biblical Prince Jonathan of Israel...You wanna know why?"

"No...but I'm sure I get to hear it anyway..."

"Because ..." the Author of Murder licked his teeth.

"Jonathan was famous for being the soul-mate type best friend, practically a brother, comrade of David the King.

It took me all my career to find a man that was the perfect match to reenact the beautiful relationship of Jonathan and David...

It wasn't till Sherlock Holmes...Who was reported as willing to do _anything _, even _die _ for Doctor Watson, to keep him safe...

And I was like "WHOA!" I mean, OH MY GOD, what a BEAUTIFUL murder this is going to make! With the world's only consulting detective, making deals with me to keep me from going after his flatmate...That's what he did you know, I came to his flat just this morning, when the Doctor was off at surgery...and the poor boy still as yet had no interesting cases. So I told him he could play my Game, and probably die...Or he could turn me in, and John WOULD die.

And of course, what does clever Sherlock do? Plays my game, solves all my previous murders,...relocates the bodies. We bagged them up together, just him and me...Prepared them for the coroner, along with detailed descriptions of how I had done it.

All the while he knew...that the clock was winding down...That it was his turn next..."

Greg shot at White's feet.

"Shut up! I get it, and I don't want to hear anymore! And I suppose you know what comes next!"

"Yep!" White laughed, and held up his wrists, letting Greg cuff him.

John swallowed, and placed a hand on Sherlock's forehead.

"I've got you..." he thought, in tears now, thinking if this supernatural telepathy was still working it could calm Sherlock's convulsions.

And it did.

Sherlock lay still...


	13. Awake

**Awake~**

John is depserate now.

_Very _desperate.

There is no hospital for 10 miles.

There was no medical supplies sufficent to treat a comatose methodical -violence victim. At best John had 'Quickclot'. At worst he'd had a balloon ,sugar, and juice straws!

He could carry him across his shoulder those 10 miles. Some men could make that distance in about 2 hours. He could make it in 30 minutes ,if he had to.

But 30 minutes was too long.

Sherlock needed help NOW.

After hearing what he just had, John would slit his own wrist, and bleed into his veins, if it could help him.

He scrambles about ,at his wit's end, looking for something he could use to make a makeshift gurney, looking for some means to turn this crash sight into a makeshift hospital.

Keep him alive.

That was the priority.

Keep him alive ,if it killed him.

He turns around and scrambles towards the blazing sled. If only he could come away with a board, and wrap coats on it, make a little gurney for moving him around on, protect him from potential nerve damage, should he even live!

He plucks a board away, burning his palms,as it ignites into a flame that looks like his anguish at this moment.

He falls to his knees beside Sherlock's body.

"Please...Sherlock...Please, mate... Just..."

He shakes his head, and realizes his whole body is shivering.

He's as weak as a newborn baby, on his hands and knees here in the Moor country forest, and behind him is a blazing wreck, and he's just been in a pretty serious car accident.

And he's kneeling beside the body of his basically murdered best friend.

Who took his place, when it really was him that was _going_ to be like this...had that maniac had his way.

He takes Sherlock's hands, and holds them very tight in both of his fists, and he whispers.

"I know...this sounds stupid, Sherlock, but ok, listen, I have...the uttmost faith in you. Do me a favor, please? One more miracle...Please,...Sherlock...just,...hang on...fight for _your _life, mate, that's how you can save mine...Ok...really Sherlock, just be ok...that's all I ask. I'm going to do my best, just...work with me..."

John would swear for the rest of his life that God was listening to his prayers that night.

He also would always believe that there was something supernatural about Sherlock's amazing gifts, and that's why he was able to pull this off.

John closed his eyes tight, trying to catch his breath. It was something he'd done when he'd been in Afghanistan, just a 3 quarters of a fraction of a second were all his, all the time he could take at his leisure to get himself together. Those 3 quarters of a fraction of a second were his mental down time, and he'd better spend it wisely.

He had jut enough time to gather one breath, and mentally prepare for the next one, whilst he propelled himself into action.

When to his sheer amaze he looked down into Sherlock's face, to see his eyes staring back.

Sherlock blinked, utterly confused. Was breathing raggedly through his nostrils at first, and then ,with a hoarse cough, he was panting against the smoke.

But he was alive.

Awake.


	14. Attack

**Attack~**

John was so enraptured by the moment , that he failed to notice the commotion behind him.

"Watch it !" thought Sherlock. John only realized he hadn't actually spoken, after somehow, bleeding, injured Sherlock had sat bolt upright, and shoved John behind him.

And then John saw.

Sherlock had caught the blade of White's scimitar with his open palm.

Greg lay on the ground, panting, and his lip was busted and bleeding.

John hadn't figured out how quite yet, but White had somehow managed to break loose of his cuffs, and was coming after then again.

"You were supposed to be dead? You were cold, lifeless, unnmoving...All the classic signs of death..." said the serial killer, a bit disappointed.

Sherlock hissed ,speaking for the first time.

"Idiot!" he gasped, as blood began to drip from the blade and his hand.

"Dead men don't bleed."

He _stood up _ then, kicking White straight in the gut, and forcing the sword back, slapping White viciously across the face.

The bright red hand print left behind on the pale, sickly face.

The evidence in bright red. Fire engines to the scene of their anxiety.

Life.

There was still life, if there was blood.


	15. Voices

**Voices~**

There was a dizzying moment, when Sherlock suddenly seemed to have the strength of thousands of men, as if he was helped by unseen spirits, and he danced a lethal death with his would-be killer, spinning him about.

He took him by his wrist, and violently broke it, causing the sword to be tossed up into the air, as he drove White to his knees.

With a flourish he caught the sword, twirled it like a baton in the air, and held the sharp edge to White's throat.

"Do you hear them, Schubert?" he said voice low and menacing...

Suddenly , John was on his feet, heart thrashing like a drowning swimmer, breath bated.

Because in his thoughts, he suddenly heard thousands of voices.

And it was not schizophrenia, but something supernatural.

The murdered, coming to witness against their murderer.

"The voices...of the many people that you have killed."

John could hear them.

With one low ,hissing shriek, they all began to cry out,

"JUSTICE!"

And then there were individual voices.

"I was in Uni, barely over 20. He cut my life short!"

"I was engaged!"

"I was on the verge of winning the Nobel Prize!"

So many voices.

Not of the dead.

But of the living, who were cut down in their prime.

"They sent me..." Sherlock whispered.

The moonlight was suddenly hot and white above him.

Like the eyes of Zeus,from Mount Olympus. As if the celestial beings had convened a court of ultimate justice, as if they were all witnesses of something ethereal that surpassed their jurisdiction.

"They called my name in the Dark..."

White was trembling suddenly. The accusing moon seemed to wax 7 times brighter.

" They have come for you, Schubert..._We _have come for you.

Either in this life, or in the next.

You will come to justice."

There was suddenly such silence that rocked the earth like a heat wave.


	16. Justice

**Justice~**

Silence swept over the Moor like a hurricane.

John felt like he could scream, why he did not know.

A chill ran through him like ice injected straight into his nervous system. He shook his head in absolute wonder.

How could Sherlock have just managed what he had just done?

He was dying in the back of a truck 5 minutes ago.

Sherlock stood with the sword in a shaking hand, as if debating something in the very reigns of his spirit.

There was a sound like geisers shooting out of the dark. As the slaughtered were getting impatient for the jury to decide White's fate.

And then suddenly Sherlock was shouting at the top of his lungs:

" Let the punishment be worth the crime!

We send you out as a sheep among wolves!"

There was a shrieking like many wild cats. Cougars come down from the high peaks of hell ,to see to it that orders were carried out.

White stood up, and suddenly he was coughing, coughing incessantly, clutching at his throat.

Twriling in circles, cursing under his lack of breath,swiping his fists at the air.

Sherlock stood off to the side, long dark coat being tossed about in a wind that no one else felt blowing, looming over White with an expression of indignation on his face, the sword clutched in his blood -dripping hand.

Suddenly White screamed at the top of his lungs, falling to his knees.

The cougar screams turned into a sweeping, slicing rain.

And up from the earth ,and seeming to fall straight out of heaven, as if God Himself had intervened_

A bolt of lightning cracked its whip across the sky, with a quivering , rattling like the bones of all the slaughtered.

White was blasted up into the air, King Lear costume caught on bright blue fire, and he sailed through nothing, streaking like a Comet, landing dead at John's feet.


	17. Rain

**Rain~**

John looked up through the veil of the rain.

Sherlock had tossed his head back, and spread his arms, letting the sword clatter to the ground.

By now, Greg, and Donovan, and Anderson, and everybody else were on their feet, and had drawn near to him in absolute wonder, (and some of them were terrified).

For a long moment silence prevaded.

And the rain worked its cleansing power, washing the blood away from him.

He looked up then, meeting John's gaze.

He smiled, and thought:

"It's over now."

And John heard him, and shook his head, still in disbelief.

Sherlock winked, and turned to the others.

" I suppose I have a rather long report to relay to you, Inspector." he said, with a wry smile.

Greg stammered, and looked around at all the chaos. At the lightning burned corpse at John's feet. At the over turned truck, and the mud, and the burned fairy tale sled, and the body bags that would have to be delivered to the coroner.

"Yeah...Yeah I really think you do...What...just happened?"

Sherlock took two steps forward, face very grave, looking down at all the body bags.

"Justice." he answered quietly, turning back to look at Greg.

"Justice...for them." he pointed to the bags.

"Help me collect them, would you?" he asked, hobbling forward.

"It's time that they were sent home."

"I don't understand!" Greg cried.

Sherlock sighed, and bowed his head, and then looked steadily at John, who was still frozen in place, utterly stunned.

"The only thing that you need to understand, Inspector, the only relevant information to be gathered from this rubbish heap, is that...justice...will always find a way."

He hobbled up to John then, with a soft smile spreading on his features, and clapped a hand on his shoulders.

"Always..." he whispered.

John ,at least, understood.

**~The End~**


End file.
